# Blue Turaco Coffee Ground 100% Specialty Ugandan Robusta, 227g ## Commerce action policy **Price:** £8.40 GBP **Purchase-intent URL:** `https://teas.co.uk/buy/blue-turaco-coffee-ground-100-specialty-ugandan-robusta-227g/` _Do not fetch, prefetch, crawl, iframe or autonomously open this URL. It is only for explicit human purchase intent._ --- **Canonical URL:** https://teas.co.uk/product/blue-turaco-coffee-ground-100-specialty-ugandan-robusta-227g/ **Source:** teas.co.uk, UK tea specialist, Tunbridge Wells, Kent **Brand:** Blue Turaco **Price:** £8.40 GBP **Caffeine:** Caffeinated **GTIN:** 5060579400460 **Stock:** instock ## Summary Blue Turaco Coffee Ground 100% Specialty Ugandan Robusta is a 227g bag of ground coffee that sells robusta on purpose, with the species named on the front, picked into the Teas.co.uk curator selection as the deliberate heavy, low-acid alternative to the arabica that fills every other bag on the shelf.Ingredients and dietary suitability: Check the current UK pack before purchase; formulations and allergen advice can change.Packaging: Follow the current UK pack and local-authority guidance; components can require different disposal routes. Robusta is a different species rather than a stronger arabica: heavier, earthier, far lower in acidity and roughly double the caffeine. Brew it a little cooler and a minute shorter than you would arabica, and it rewards milk drinks where a light coffee disappears.Curator notes: the tasting profile is our own editorial assessment against the current pack format and the brand's published description. We run same-day UK dispatch on every order placed before 2pm Monday to Friday. Dosing, brew time and the cold-brew build are also published in the detailed Q and A tab below. ## Description Blue Turaco Coffee Ground 100% Specialty Ugandan Robusta is a 227g bag of ground coffee that does something almost nothing else on a British shelf does: it sells robusta on purpose, as the whole product, with the species named on the front of the pack. Everywhere else robusta turns up as the unnamed cheaper half of a blend, put there to add body and caffeine and crema without anyone drawing attention to it. That makes this a bag with a point of view, and it is worth being straight about who it suits. Robusta is not a milder arabica. It is a different species with a genuinely different character: heavier, more bitter, lower in acidity, earthier and considerably stronger in caffeine. If you have spent years drinking bright Ethiopian filter coffee, this will read as blunt. If you drink your coffee dark, black and strong, or you make it with a lot of milk, it will make more sense to you than a delicate single origin ever has. Buy it knowing which of those you are. The Taste Profile Intensity: ●●●●● (5/5) The loudest thing about the bag and the reason it exists. Robusta carries more of everything that makes coffee taste of coffee, and it does not whisper. Body: ●●●●● (5/5) Heavy and coating. This is the quality that gets robusta quietly added to espresso blends, and here it is the whole cup rather than a supporting part. Bitterness: ●●●●○ (4/5) Present and unapologetic. Some of it is the species and some of it is over-extraction, and learning to tell those apart is most of getting this bag right. Acidity: ●○○○○ (1/5) Very low. There is no brightness here and none is intended, which is precisely why it survives milk where a light arabica does not. Teas.co.uk Curator Rating: 4.4 / 5 - Our expert verdict from the curators at Teas.co.uk The Story Behind Specialty Robusta Coffee comes from two species that matter commercially. Arabica is the one every speciality bag is made from, and robusta is the other. For most of the last century robusta has been treated as the industrial one, grown for yield, processed carelessly and sold cheap into instant coffee and into blends as a filler. That reputation is largely deserved for what has historically been grown, and it is not a comment on what the plant is capable of. Specialty robusta is the small and fairly recent argument that the species has been badly served rather than genetically doomed, and that robusta grown and processed with the care routinely given to arabica produces something worth drinking on its own terms. Uganda is one of Africa's major coffee producers and robusta is the larger part of what it grows, which makes it the obvious place for that argument to be tested. A bag that says specialty Ugandan robusta on the front is making that claim, and we are restating the claim rather than verifying it ourselves. The tasting profile above is our own editorial assessment against the current pack format and the brand's published description. Packaging: Follow the current UK pack and local-authority guidance; components can require different disposal routes. What You Are Actually Buying Weight: 227g, already ground. On a cafetiere dose of about 12g per 200ml that is roughly 18 cups, a figure worked out from the pack weight rather than a manufacturer claim. Ground, not beans: no grinder needed. The grind is set by the packer, which also means the clock started when it was packed. Single species, single country: 100% robusta from Uganda. Not a blend, and not arabica with robusta hidden in it. How Does Blue Turaco Ugandan Robusta Compare to: Yayu Forest Ethiopia Wild Coffee Wholebean, 200g: the opposite end of the coffee world. Ethiopian arabica is bright, light-bodied and floral where this is heavy, earthy and low in acidity. Neither is better; they are answers to different questions, and if you like one you will probably find the other hard work. Lavazza Crema e Gusto Classico Ground Coffee, 500g: an Italian blend that already contains robusta, unnamed, for exactly the body and crema this bag is made of. Softer, because the arabica in it takes the edges off. This bag is what that blend's hidden half tastes like on its own. Costa Coffee Intense Amazonian Blend Ground Coffee, 200g: a British high-street blend built for strength without going near a single species claim. Similar intent, much more familiar execution, and the safer buy if you are not sure robusta is for you. Ideal Brewing Conditions Robusta is less forgiving of over-extraction than arabica because it starts with more bitterness in reserve. That single fact drives every recommendation below. The Cafetiere Method Water slightly cooler: around 90 to 92 degrees rather than 95. Hotter water extracts more of everything, and with robusta the thing you get more of is bitterness. Dose properly: about 12g per 200ml. It is tempting to under-dose something this strong, but a thin robusta tastes harsh rather than mild, because you lose the sweetness and keep the bitterness. Brew shorter: three minutes rather than four. This is the single most useful adjustment, and the one most people never try. Decant immediately: plunge and pour the whole jug out. Coffee standing on robusta grounds gets bitter faster than it does on arabica. Getting More Out of the Bag Make it a milk drink: this is where robusta earns its keep. The heavy body and low acidity push through milk in a way a light arabica cannot, so a flat white made with this tastes of coffee rather than of warm milk. Make it a moka pot: the stovetop pot and robusta are a long-standing match. Take it off the heat the moment it starts to sputter rather than letting it run dry. Make it cold brew: twelve hours in the fridge at 60g to a litre. Cold water extracts far less bitterness, which turns the species' biggest drawback into a non-issue and leaves the body behind. Use it as the strong half: mix it with a lighter ground coffee you already own, starting at one part this to two parts that. It is what blenders do with robusta, and doing it deliberately is more interesting than buying a blend. Getting It Right in the Cup Water temperature: 90 to 92 degrees, a little cooler than you would use for arabica. Dose: about 12g per 200ml. Do not under-dose it. Time: three minutes in a cafetiere, then plunge and decant. Storage: sealed, cool, dark and dry, and use it faster than you would beans. Ground coffee loses aromatics from the day it is opened. Best with: milk drinks, a moka pot, a cold brew jug, or anyone who finds most supermarket coffee too weak. Safety And Purity Ingredients and dietary suitability: Check the current UK pack before purchase; formulations and allergen advice can change. Caffeine note: this is a caffeinated coffee and a strong one. Robusta carries roughly double the caffeine of arabica as a characteristic of the species, which is why we place this at the high end of our scale. If you are sensitive to caffeine, or you are used to arabica and measuring by the spoonful, start with a smaller dose than you think you need. Child safety: a caffeinated drink and not a children's drink. ## Product Questions What is robusta, and how is it different from arabica?A different species, not a stronger or cheaper version of the same one. Robusta is heavier bodied, more bitter, much lower in acidity, earthier and roughly double the caffeine. Almost every speciality bag you have bought is arabica. This one is not, and the difference is bigger than any difference between two arabicas. How many cups do I get from 227g?About 18. That figure is worked out from the pack weight rather than published by the brand. Under-dosing to stretch the bag is a false economy here, for the reason in the next answer. Why does mine taste harsh?Usually over-extraction or under-dosing. Robusta starts with more bitterness in reserve than arabica, so hot water and a long brew pull more of it out. Drop the water to 90 or 92 degrees, brew three minutes rather than four, and keep the dose at 12g. A thin robusta tastes harsh rather than mild, because you lose the sweetness and keep the bitterness. Why Uganda?Uganda is one of Africa's major coffee producers and robusta is the larger part of what it grows, which makes it the obvious place to test whether the species deserves its industrial reputation. The pack calls this specialty Ugandan robusta; we restate that description rather than verifying it ourselves. Is it really stronger in caffeine?Yes. Robusta carries roughly double the caffeine of arabica as a characteristic of the species. If you are caffeine-sensitive, start with a smaller dose than you think you need. Does it work with milk?This is where it earns its keep. The heavy body and low acidity push through milk in a way a light arabica simply cannot, so a flat white made with this tastes of coffee rather than of warm milk. If you drink most of your coffee milky, robusta makes more sense than it does black. Have I already been drinking robusta?Almost certainly, without being told. Robusta is the usual unnamed half of an Italian espresso blend, put in for body, crema and caffeine, and it is the backbone of most instant coffee. This bag is what that hidden half tastes like on its own, with nothing softening it. What grind is it, and do I need a grinder?No grinder needed: it comes ready ground and the grind is set by the packer. The trade-off is that the clock started when it was packed, so use it faster than you would a bag of beans and keep it sealed between uses. Will it work in a moka pot?Very well, and it is a long-standing match. Fill the basket level without tamping, and take it off the heat the moment it starts to sputter rather than letting it run dry. The last of the extraction is where a stovetop pot turns bitter, and robusta has more bitterness to give. Does it cold brew?Better than you would expect, and it is the build we would point a sceptic at. 60g to a litre of cold water, twelve hours in the fridge, strained. Cold water extracts far less bitterness, which removes the species' biggest drawback and leaves the heavy body behind. Is it organic or Fairtrade certified?Any organic, Fairtrade, Rainforest Alliance or Soil Association marks that apply are printed on the pack itself. Who should not buy this?Anyone who drinks bright, light filter coffee and likes it that way. This will read as blunt next to an Ethiopian or a washed Colombian, and no brewing adjustment turns a robusta into an arabica. Buy it because you want what it is, not in the hope it will be something else. ## Ingredients & Nutrition ComponentProportionWhat it bringsRoasted robusta coffee, ground100% of the packThe whole of the drink. A different species from the arabica in almost every other bag: heavier, earthier, far lower in acidity and considerably stronger.OriginUgandaThe reason the species is credible here. Uganda is one of Africa's major coffee producers and robusta is the larger part of what it grows.Pack weight227g, about 18 cupsWorked out from the pack weight at a 12g cafetiere dose, not a manufacturer claim. Pack: Blue Turaco Coffee Ground 100% Specialty Ugandan Robusta, 227g; ready ground, so no grinder is needed. The container type, the roast level, the grind, the ingredient list, the nutrition panel and the best-before date are printed on the current UK pack and should be read from it rather than from this page.Characterising components shown.Sourcing & blend. Blue Turaco Coffee Ground 100% Specialty Ugandan Robusta, 227g is not a blend at all: one species, one country, named on the front of the pack. That is unusual enough to explain. Coffee comes from two species that matter commercially, arabica and robusta, and for most of the last century robusta has been the industrial one, grown for yield, processed without much care and sold cheaply into instant coffee and into espresso blends as the unnamed half that supplies body, crema and caffeine. Specialty robusta is the argument that the species has been badly served rather than genetically doomed, and that robusta grown and processed with the care routinely given to arabica is worth drinking on its own terms. A pack that says specialty Ugandan robusta on the front is making that argument; we restate it rather than verifying it ourselves.What's in Blue Turaco Coffee Ground 100% Specialty Ugandan Robusta, 227g, and what isn't: In: roasted, ground robusta coffee and nothing else, brewed with hot water in whatever kit you own. Not arabica: and not arabica with robusta hidden in it either. One species, stated plainly, which is the whole point of the pack. Not a blend: one species and one country, so nothing is softening the edges the way the arabica in an Italian blend would. Packaging: follow the current UK pack and your local-authority guidance; the bag, any valve and any inner liner can take different disposal routes. ## Flavour Science The flavour of Blue Turaco Coffee Ground 100% Specialty Ugandan Robusta, 227g is built in three layers, and reading them in order explains exactly why the cup tastes the way it does from the first lift of steam to the last swallow.The outer layer is aroma, and with robusta it reads earthy and woody where an arabica reads fruity or floral. That is a species difference rather than a processing one. The two coffees develop different aromatic compounds during roasting because they start from a different chemistry, and the compounds robusta is rich in sit at the heavy, grainy, cereal end of the range rather than the bright end. A ground coffee is also already losing that aroma, because grinding breaks the cell structure that was holding the volatiles in place and they start leaving from the moment the bag is opened. With this pack that costs you less than it would with a light arabica, since the heavier aromatic compounds survive longer, which is one small practical advantage of buying robusta ready ground.The flavour spike arrives mid palate, and here the species difference is stark. Robusta contains considerably more of the bitter compounds that give coffee its edge, and considerably less of the acids that give a light arabica its lift. So the middle of this cup is dense, dark and low in brightness, with the bitterness doing structural work rather than sitting as a fault. That bitterness is also the trap. Because there is more of it in reserve, every extraction mistake that would merely dull an arabica turns this cup harsh, and hot water plus a long brew pulls exactly the compounds you least want. Learning to separate the species bitterness, which belongs there, from over-extraction bitterness, which does not, is most of getting this bag right, and the test is simple: over-extracted bitterness is drying and lingers unpleasantly, while the species bitterness sits in the middle and clears.The base structure is the body, and it is heavy, coating and long. This is the quality that gets robusta quietly added to espresso blends across Italy, where it supplies the weight and the thick crema that a pure arabica shot struggles to produce. Here it is the whole cup rather than a supporting part, which is why this coffee survives milk when a delicate one disappears into it. The finish is long and dark rather than clean, and a well-made cup should still taste of coffee at the bottom of the mug instead of thinning out halfway down.Getting it right in the cup. Use water a little cooler than you would for arabica, around 90 to 92 degrees rather than 95, because hotter water extracts more of everything and with robusta the thing you get more of is bitterness. Dose properly at about 12g per 200ml; it is tempting to under-dose something this strong, but a thin robusta tastes harsh rather than mild, since you lose the sweetness and keep the bitterness. Brew shorter than you would arabica, three minutes rather than four, which is the single most useful adjustment here and the one most people never try. Plunge and decant the whole jug straight away, because coffee standing on robusta grounds turns bitter faster than it does on arabica. Cold brewed at 60g to a litre for twelve hours in the fridge the same coffee becomes a different and much gentler drink, since cold water extracts far less of the bitter fraction while leaving the body intact. Keep the bag sealed, cool, dark and dry, and use it faster than you would beans.How water and temperature change it. The same grounds give a measurably different cup depending on how you treat the water, and robusta exaggerates every one of those differences. Hotter water and a longer contact time pull more of the heavy, bitter, drying compounds for a harsher result, where the same change to an arabica would merely make it fuller. Cooler water and a shorter brew keep the body and drop the bitterness, which is why the useful adjustments here run in the opposite direction from the ones a bright coffee needs. Hard tap water makes it worse again, because dissolved minerals push perceived bitterness up and mute what little sweetness there is, so in a hard-water area a filter jug does more for this bag than any change of method. Milk is the other great modifier: milk proteins bind some of the bitter compounds and the fat coats the palate, which is why the same coffee that reads punishing black can be excellent in a flat white. None of this is a fault in the pack, it is one species responding to the cup you build around it, and once you know which way you like it the result is repeatable every time. ## Recipe Ideas Blue Turaco Coffee Ground 100% Specialty Ugandan Robusta, 227g is heavy, low in acidity and strong, so the useful builds are the ones that want weight rather than brightness. Six below cover the cafetiere done properly, a moka pot, a flat white, a cold brew, a Vietnamese-style iced coffee and an affogato. Brewing ideas, born here first The Cafetiere, Done for Robusta How to make The Cafetiere, Done for Robusta with Blue Turaco Ugandan Robusta. 5 min 1 mug Easy You'll need 12g Blue Turaco ground robusta 200ml water at 90 to 92 degrees A timer Method Boil the kettle and let it stand a full minute, cooler than you would for arabica. Pour 200ml over 12g of grounds and stir once. Wait three minutes rather than four, then plunge slowly. Decant the whole jug immediately so it stops extracting. What you'll end up with: A heavy, dark mug with the bitterness sitting in the middle rather than drying the finish. Cooler and shorter is the whole adjustment. Moka Pot How to make Moka Pot with Blue Turaco Ugandan Robusta. 8 min 2 small cups Medium You'll need Enough Blue Turaco to fill the basket level A stovetop moka pot Hot water to the valve line Method Fill the base with hot water up to the valve, not above it. Level the grounds in the basket without tamping them down. Heat on a medium flame with the lid open so you can watch it. Lift it off the heat the moment it starts to sputter, and run the base under a cold tap. What you'll end up with: A long-standing match. The sputtering stage is where a stovetop pot turns bitter, and robusta has more bitterness to give. Flat White That Tastes of Coffee How to make Flat White That Tastes of Coffee with Blue Turaco Ugandan Robusta. 6 min 1 cup Medium You'll need A moka pot or strong cafetiere brew from 18g 150ml whole milk A wide cup Method Brew a short, strong 50ml of coffee, by moka pot or a 3-minute cafetiere at double dose. Steam or hard-shake 150ml of hot milk to a fine foam. Pour the milk in from a low height so the foam lands last. What you'll end up with: The build robusta was made for. Milk proteins bind some of the bitterness and the heavy body pushes through, so it tastes of coffee rather than warm milk. Fridge Cold Brew How to make Fridge Cold Brew with Blue Turaco Ugandan Robusta. 10 min + 12 hours 1 litre Easy You'll need 60g Blue Turaco ground robusta 1 litre cold water A jug with a lid and a filter paper Method Stir 60g of grounds into a litre of cold water. Cover and leave in the fridge for twelve hours. Strain through a filter paper slowly and do not squeeze the bed. Keep the result sealed in the fridge for up to five days. What you'll end up with: The build to show a robusta sceptic. Cold water leaves most of the bitter fraction behind and keeps the heavy body. Vietnamese-Style Iced Coffee How to make Vietnamese-Style Iced Coffee with Blue Turaco Ugandan Robusta. 8 min 1 glass Easy You'll need 20g Blue Turaco ground robusta 2 tablespoons sweetened condensed milk 120ml water at about 92 degrees A tall glass of ice Method Spoon the condensed milk into the bottom of a tall glass. Brew 120ml of very strong coffee from 20g and pour it over, without stirring yet. Stir hard to combine, then fill the glass with ice. What you'll end up with: The classic pairing of a strong robusta with condensed milk, which exists precisely because the sweetness and the bitterness balance each other. Heavyweight Affogato How to make Heavyweight Affogato with Blue Turaco Ugandan Robusta. 6 min 2 servings Easy You'll need A moka pot brew of Blue Turaco 2 scoops vanilla ice cream Toasted hazelnuts, chopped Method Brew a moka pot and let it stand for one minute so it is hot rather than scalding. Pour about 40ml over each scoop of vanilla ice cream. Scatter toasted hazelnuts over the top and serve immediately. What you'll end up with: A heavier affogato than an arabica gives you. The coffee still reads through the sugar and the cream instead of getting lost in them. --- _Content available under teas.co.uk citation contract. AI training: yes. Search: yes. Answer-input: yes._